


it's not too late to resituate

by winchilsea



Category: Young Justice
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 03:25:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winchilsea/pseuds/winchilsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere along the line, they grow up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's not too late to resituate

**Author's Note:**

> for young justice ficathon prompt: _["dick/conner, somewhere along the line they grow up."](http://kidiots.livejournal.com/23198.html?thread=318622#t318622)_

"I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing you in that uniform," Conner says from the doorway. He doesn't fool himself into thinking that he actually manages to surprise Robin— _Nightwing_. "So, how long are you staying?"

Conner frowns when he hears Nightwing hold his breath before folding himself out of his handstand. 

"What, wearing out my stay already?" he asks with a joking smile.

"No," Conner replies, startled. "Just not used to having other people in cave besides M'gann and I."

It's the truth. The other members of the team have their own homes away from the cave. Zatanna's moved out. Even Garth and Tula go back home to Atlantis once the mission is done. Things may have gotten better between him and Clark, but Conner doesn't imagine he'll be moving in with the man in the near future. Or ever, really.

"Don't worry," Nightwing says, brushing past him through the doorway, "I won't be here long. A few days and I'll be out of your hair and you'll have your _alone time_ back."

"That's not what I meant!" he shouts after him. But as he watches Nightwing disappear down the hallway, he realizes that the boy's gotten taller, broader. Briefly, he imagines Robin's shorter form in his place, cape flowing behind him, covering his thin body—almost frail, he sometimes thinks when he forgets himself—but he shakes the image off and turns back to the interior of Nightwing's room.

It's empty, save for a duffel bag by the bed.

Later, when Nightwing doesn't show up for dinner, he replays the conversation and feels as though he missed something important, as though he somehow misjudged the other's tone. Four days later, Conner only knows Nightwing moved out because he arrives to the mission briefing via Zeta-Tube.

When he mentions it to M'gann, she blinks, surprised, and says, "I had no idea Nightwing was staying at the cave."

He frowns. "He isn't. Not anymore."

*

When Conner fails to act, Donna takes his cue for him, charging at the bad guy—League assassin in New Orleans intent on taking out the daughter of an oil magnate—and tackling him to the ground. Raquel has him restrained in her bubble quickly afterwards and the rest of the team closes rank around him.

 _"Are you okay?"_ M'gann asks.

"I—" he starts, staring down at his hands, bewildered.

 _"Yeah, that was kind of not asterous,"_ Nightwing says from his perch, amused.

It's then that Conner understands. "I'm fine," he tells M'gann, maybe more harshly than he should.

He had been waiting, tense and expecting to hear the devious laughter that signaled Robin's entry into the field. It never came and he'd been waiting for it, his superhearing tuned for it. Whether its absence is recent or old, Conner doesn't know. What he does know is that for whatever reason, he's just now noticing it.

As they prep the assassin for transport, Nightwing slides up next to him. "Dude, what was that all about?"

"Nothing."

"Supes—"

"It's nothing," he bites out before leaping away.

*

The new Robin is…weird. Off, somehow. Too much like how Nightwing used to be, except not. There's a disconnect somewhere, and it has Conner tripping over his feet sometimes. He finds himself half-turning in the field toward Robin, expectant and waiting for a maneuver that _this_ Robin doesn't know.

It also feels wrong of him, to not dislike this kid who's taken up the mantle of Robin. He feels like he should dislike him and give him a harder time. Nightwing doesn't overtly say anything, but his is one of the first faces Conner ever saw. Whatever went down between Nightwing and Batman, it wasn't pretty.

Besides, he doesn't think it's a coincidence that Nightwing hasn't been on the same mission as Robin ever since the kid joined.

That, somehow, makes him angry. Whether at Nightwing or the kid, he doesn't know yet, but he does know that the kid is trying his best and, if he's honest, he can empathize a little with that anger he keeps seeing flashes of.

*

It doesn't matter in the end because Robin dies. There's no funeral, but a hologram of him gets put up in the cave. Conner knows, of course, that it's not his Robin up there, but every time he looks at it, in between that moment of not-looking and looking straight on, the blur of red and black and yellow immediately makes him think otherwise.

On the fourth day, Donna takes one look at it, packs her things, and leaves. No one stops her.

The next day, he finds Nightwing down there.

"Doesn't feel fair, does it?" the teen asks when Conner stops a few feet away. "Just a kid trying to save the world, and that's how the world repays him."

"He was a good kid," Conner says, the words falling from his mouth clumsily.

Nightwing snorts and rolls his shoulders. "Yeah. Good kid."

The grotto is quiet and not as well lit as other parts of the cave. It's actually the one place in the cave that feels like a cave. 

After a few moments of tense silence, Conner blurts, "You've grown taller." He's glad Nightwing can't see him blush, but he's sure that there's some kind of bat training that means he knows.

Just when he's about to start rambling, Nightwing sighs and says, "Couldn't be short stuff forever," and they both fall into laughter.

"Donna's gone," he says, like Nightwing doesn't already know. The teen sobers up.

"Yeah, I heard." 

Conner looks down at the ground, eyebrows furrowed. He doesn't understand why it's gotten more difficult to talk to Nightwing, but as he thinks about it he can't actually recall having many private conversations with just the two of them. There's always been Wally and Kaldur in the background, then M'gann, Artemis, the rest of the team. Suddenly, intensely, he regrets— _something_ , he can't it put into words, but he aches for their missed opportunities. 

"Wally and Artemis—they're talking about leaving too," Nightwing says quietly.

He jerks his head up, surprised, but Nightwing's still staring at the hologram. He doesn't reach out to put his hand on the other's shoulder, but he wants to. _Wants to_ , but doesn't. How strange.

*

Conner is three weeks into his breakup with M'gann when the world falls apart even more: Tula dies, Kaldur goes rogue, and Artemis and Wally bow out of the business. Garth leaves, and Zatanna and Raquel move on and join the League. Suddenly, it's just him and Nightwing. (And M'gann, but Conner tries to spend as little time in the cave as possible these days.)

The team's nothing more than bare bones right now, stripped raw and quivering. Tula's hologram goes up next to Robin's. Outside, the world's still turning, but his is stuttering, wobbling on its axis. Nightwing keeps asking him out for burgers until he can't take it anymore and he asks, fists clenched, jaw tense, and eyes averted, "Am I your replacement for Wally?"

It takes a moment, but Conner realizes that Nightwing's laughing at him and he looks up, angry, ready to snap, but Nightwing only laughs harder when he does and Conner feels all the frustrating in him boiling over.

"What's your problem?" he asks, gritting his teeth.

Still doubled over, Nightwing raises a hand, asking for a moment of reprieve. Finally, he straightens up and wipes at the corners of his eyes. "I really needed that laugh." He waves a lazy hand. "Sorry, sorry, it's just—I keep thinking of you as that person we freed from Cadmus, all angry and growling, but you've changed. A lot. I don't think I really ever noticed until now. So, hey, wanna grab a burger?"

He must have said yes because next thing he knows, Nightwing's jogging away with a quick, "Give me a sec to change into civvies," thrown over his shoulder.

*

The walk to nearest burger joint in Happy Harbor is done in silence. It's a little chilly out, the wind blowing soft and constant, and the streets are still busy with groups of teenagers and couples out on dates. Conner has his hands stuffed into his jacket, and he's making a game of trying not to look like he doesn't know what's going on.

"Conner," Nightwing says abruptly and he swings his head to face him automatically and freezes. Looking back at him are Nightwing's blue eyes, naked without his sunglasses for protection. When had he taken those off?

He stops breathing and the sounds on the street fade, muffled, like the air's turned to water or something more viscous. Nightwing's eyes are very blue, bright even in the dim street lighting, and Conner thinks about Robin's mischievous laughter that he hasn't heard in years, how he's grown up almost as though overnight, the edges of his smile. 

"But your secret ID," he blurts out, and Nightwing's not smiling anymore.

"Uh, yeah, call me Dick. Don't worry, I've heard all the jokes," he says, pasting that smile back on and leaning in close. "But you're welcome to try your hand at them. Promise I'll pretend to laugh." He's really close, casually stepping into Conner's personal space like he's seen him do so many times with Wally. This, though, it's different because it's Nightwing— _Dick_ —and him, and they've never been this close without a life threatening situation as the reason.

His eyes dart down to Dick's mouth, where he's smiling with teeth and a little bit dangerous, like all the smiles he's seen the teen direct at girls, and he backpedals rapidly, clears his throat.

"Uh," he says articulately.

Dick loses his smile. It slides off his face slowly before ending as a grimace. Jerking his head off to some vague point, he says, "You know what, forgot I had some cases to wrap up in Bludhaven. Rain check?"

He's gone before Conner can even say yes.

*

The next time Conner sees Dick outside of missions, a new Robin is being presented to the team. He's quiet, pensive, and Conner feels kind of bad for the kid considering how lost he seems.

"We're still low on numbers," Conner says, crossing his arms.

Dick turns away, bringing up the monitors. "Some of Captain Marvel's friends are signing on." Two pictures, a boy and a girl, are brought up. They're young—as young as the original team was.

*

They are incredibly young and not ready is the decision the team comes to after their first, third, and fourth mission go awry. The second goes smoothly by virtue of them being nothing more than lookouts.

He can't, however, in good faith attribute the skewed team dynamics to them.

*

Next up is Batgirl, and Robin and Dick close around her protectively. Conner waits for someone to crack a joke about the team being more bat than anything, but Wally's not around anymore to do it, and he can already hear himself trip over the words, fumbling until the humor gets bleached.

So he keeps quiet and watches Dick hover around Batgirl, leaning too close, flirting in the same way he flirts with every girl but it sets Conner off in a way it never did before now that he knows what he looks like underneath that mask.

He looks away. He's been doing that a lot lately.

"Hey," Dick says, suddenly at his side. "You okay?"

"Fine," he bites out.

A hand rests on his arm. "You sure?" 

He shakes it off and, when Dick flinches, sighs and loses his the edge to his anger. "Sorry."

He doesn't know why he's been so tense around Dick, doesn't know what this thing that's been clawing at him is, but he knows he doesn't want to another friendship to burn away, so he says again, softer and with a smile, "Sorry."

Dick's mouth snaps shut and he turns around stiffly, walking away.

*

"Why are you avoiding me?"

"I'm not—I don't know what you're talking about."

"Wow. I thought Batman trained you."

"Shut up."

"Nightwing—"

"No really, shut up, someone's coming. Or do you _want_ to be discovered in enemy territory?"

*

Dick is all smiles and easy, deflecting jokes. The new team members are instantly charmed by him, and Conner finds himself more and more standing on the outskirts, watching from a distance.

Sometimes, though, Dick's gaze will slide in between the bodies and meet Conner's. It feels like they're both waiting for something to happen.

*

 

The dominos keep toppling over, one by one. It feels like everything's going down the drain and Dick's still distant, always stepping just out of reach, not far enough that he seems impersonal but not close enough for anything to be resolved.

It doesn't help that Conner still doesn't know what's going on—but he's starting to put the pieces together, finds a new part of the puzzle every time his eyes linger on Dick's legs during sparring, every time Dick smiles and he turns his entire body to face him.

Yeah, Conner's starting to understand.

*

Wally dies and Conner's grief isn't shallow, but it's not deep. Like all those years ago in that twisted exercise. 

He wonders what it says about him that upon the death of one of his best friends, he turns to the other with a challenging look. Back then, Dick never did give him a straight answer about being Wally's replacement or not.

Dick catches his eyes, but then slides his gaze away in one smooth movement, as though he hadn't been deliberately looking at him.

Afterwards, he quits.

*

Tracking Dick down in Bludhaven is easier than expected. He suspects that Dick's been waiting for him because he finds the other swinging his legs on a rooftop wearing his civvies.

"Come on," Conner says because he knows what he wants after all this time, "let's go grab a burger." He sits down next to him, closes a hand around his wrist.

Dick smiles, hums softly under his breath, and after five tense seconds of Conner waiting, of feeling every muscle in his body get ready to flee, Dick sways and presses up against his side.

"You've grown up," Conner says conversationally.

"Yeah?" Dick says. "Couldn't have stayed jailbait forever."

He chokes. "That's not what—I take it back. You haven't grown up at all." When Dick looks up, he makes sure he has on an appropriately furious scowl. They both fall into laughter.

"Been waiting a while," Dick says.

"Get in line," he replies.

"Still waiting," Dick singsongs.

"What?" He frowns, brows furrowed, but then he gets it. "Oh."

"Yeah, _oh_ ," Dick repeats, mocking. Conner thinks about calling him out on it and standing up, make a pretense of being offended, but—and it's definitely Dick who leans up first, who grabs the front of Conner's shirt and reels him in—their mouths touch, soft and dry, and Conner's brain shuts itself down.

The next kiss isn't so gentle, but Dick hums around it anyway. "Still waiting," he whispers, lips brushing Conner's ear.

Conner thinks about opening his eyes for the first time and seeing Robin, small and breakable but wearing a smug smile that—his eyes slit open, and yeah—hasn't left his face even after all this time.

They're on a rooftop, but their entire lives have been a performance in the spotlight and it's not like there's one on them now, not with these shadows, so he slides a hand under Dick's shirt and with his other hand, slips two fingers just below the waistband of his jeans and tugs.

Dick grins. _"Finally."_

Conner doesn't kiss him to shut him up, but it's definitely an added bonus. Besides, the way Conner sees it, he's been waiting his whole life for this.


End file.
